Colin Cowherd Trolls Kobe Bryant By Playing ‘Another’ Recording Of James Naismith

Rick Chandler 02:37 pm, December 16th, 2015

By now you've probably heard that there's a recording of Dr. James Naismith describing the first indoor game of basketball, the sport he invented. It was discovered by a professor at the University of Kansas, where Naismith spent much of his life, and was recorded for a New York radio show in 1939. It is also the first known recording of Naismith's voice.

The game was in the gym at Springfield College, in Massachusetts, in 1894. And it was, admitted Naismith, pretty much a free-for-all. It was before he had developed any of his famed 13 rules, and it turned into somewhat of an indoor rugby match in which several students incurred injuries. Naismith, chuckling: "It was murder."

Colin Cowherd played it on his show this morning, and added a little dig at Kobe Bryant at the end.

Just as many younger people won't watch movies in black-and-white, I guess Cowherd somehow figures that his key demographic won't listen to events in black-and-white either. So he decided to spice it up with a contemporary reference at the end.

Anyway I think that Cowherd says the first game was played at Kansas, which obviously is wrong. The Boston area can claim to be the real home of basketball.

Also interesting: this New York Times piece reporting how Naismith hated zone defense, saying that it "stalled the game" and made him not want to watch it anymore.